Students share beliefs about global warming

On Tuesday, Jan 9, at 6 p.m., Save our Snow, a seminar discussing global warming will be held at the Eccles Center. The event, hosted by KPCW and Park City Mountain resort, will cover results of recent global warming studies. Park City High School students gave their thoughts on global warming.

In Late December, 2006, the 25-square-mile Ayles Ice Shelf was discovered to have broken free from Ellesmere Island, near the North Pole. The estimated 3000-year-old ice fracture was considered consistent with climate change, according to scientists. But was this event due to global warming, or a natural change in climate?

Does Jack Laursen, a Park City High School senior, believe in global warming? "Absolutely," he said. He has seen what he believes is evidence of global warming. He used to live in Europe, and he said that the sparse snow at ski resorts was becoming more and noticeable. He blamed greenhouse gasses.

Park City High senior Lauren Staeuble, had just seen Al Gore’s documentary "An Inconvenient truth." She said it was well done and that there were a lot of good things to take from it. She added she is learning to be skeptical about some of the claims made on global warming, but at the same time, she said there was so much evidence of its existence. Staeuble didn’t know if it was possible to stop the CO2 emissions. She said if there were not enough snow for winter sports, "tourism would be dead."

On New Year ‘s Day, hundreds of people took advantage of the sunny day to play at Gorgoza Park, a tubing hill near Jeremy Ranch. Gorgoza manager Tom Butz had his doubts about global warming. In the eight years he has been at the park, he said he has seen no difference in snow conditions over time. "Last year was one of our coldest years, and one of our best years," he said. He believed the world goes through weather cycles. But even if global warming is taking place, Butz seemed an optimist. "There’s always a solution," he said. " I don’t think we’re going to beat Mother Nature." The good thing is that people are aware of it, they’re thinking about it now," he added.

Tres Wilson, a senior at Park City High, said he has a theory about CO2 emissions. He predicts CO2 will build in the stratosphere. He believes the resulting heat and humidity will result in more vegetation, using plant growth in tropical climates as an example. But since plants need CO2 to grow, he believes they will consume the excess CO2. "Nature will recycle," he said.